Storm Safety

ByMichael King |October 14, 2013

State data obtained by Oklahoma Watch shows that although a random lottery was used to distribute residential shelter rebates, some areas received shares well above or below their percentages of the state population.

ByPresented by Oklahoma Watch |June 18, 2013

METHODOLOGY

SoonerPoll.com conducted the random-sample, scientific survey from May 22 through June 12, using live telephone interviewers. Of the 402 respondents who participated, 108 were contacted by cell phone and 295 by land line. The combined results have been weighted to adjust for variation in the sample relating to age, sex and political party. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. For smaller subgroups, the margin of sampling error is larger. Some respondents were interviewed this week by Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative team established to report on public policy issues in Oklahoma.

Albert Ashwood, Oklahoma’s emergency management chief, tells Oklahoma Watch’s Warren Vieth that even at a cost of $500 million to $1 billion, adding a safe room to every school in the state can be done.

Oklahoma low-income and working-class residents are least able to afford residential storm shelters. But a grant program that defrays costs of such storm shelters doesn’t give priority to those residents.

In Case You Missed It

A fourth of high schools across the state have eliminated world language classes over a decade, erasing the chances for thousands of students to acquire skills that could better prepare them for college and the job market.

Between 2012 and 2015, nine inmates in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary took their own lives, giving Oklahoma’s only state-owned maximum security prison the highest suicide rate among corrections facilities. Is solitary confinement to blame?